And like the cycle of the year, we begin again
by katheryne
Summary: Set after the Merlin Series 5 Finale. Canon Compliant. In Character. When Arthur returns after 1,500 years, he finds a world unlike the one he knew. Faced with the loss of all he loved and impending prophecy, Arthur must learn what it means to be not just a king, but the Once and Future King. Merlin does all he can to guide him, even as he struggles to hide his love for his king.
1. Chapter 1

He fell into darkness surrounded by Merlin's cries.

 _"_ _Arthur! No! Arthur!"_

As the strange weight crawled into his bones, Arthur had one last wistful thought:

If Death itself couldn't force Merlin to obey, then what chance had he ever had as a mere king?

Arthur wanted to tell his friend this gibe, to turn Merlin's desperate cries into wry laughter. But he no longer had the strength to speak. He no longer had the strength to do anything. Certainly not to fight this heavy weight pulling at him. Down, he sank, away from his life and his lands, from his castle and his country, from his friends and his foes.

At his side, Merlin screamed his rage at destiny and fate and the spirits of the world, his words charged with such power that Arthur could feel it resonating within his bones.

 _"_ _I can't lose him! He's my friend!"_

The fabric of the world rippled and surged under the force of Merlin's pleas. But the darkness did not loose its grip.

Arthur let it take him into its numbing embrace, relieved to leave behind all pain and loss, all battles and betrayals. Grateful to be going to his rest at last.

And yet...

Arthur strained to focus one last time on the living world. To take one last memory with him. Just one, to hold, while he slept.

Of the feeling of his body rocking on soft waves. Of drops of saltwater falling upon his cheeks. Of hoarse sobs mixed with whispered words of power. Of a warm, tender hand pressed to his forehead.

 _Merlin_ , he thought.

And the name was a goodbye, and a thank you, and a promise, all in one.

But then the world fell away.

And all was darkness and peace.

There was no time here, where he was, and yet he could feel the years surging past him. There was no consciousness either, and yet he somehow knew that everything he had known was now gone.

These were simple facts, devoid of emotion. Nothing mattered here. He simply existed. That was all.

Sometimes, though, a ripple from the living world pierced the timeless nothing, to touch him in the dark.

Memories would flow in, fleeting but intense. Gleaming castle spires and clashing swords and laughter and betrayal and love and friendship and a warm hand upon his forehead and blue eyes searching his face and a hoarse voice screaming his name.

 _Arthur..._

Darkness swept it all away every time.

From within his world of timeless nothing the world spun on and on, the sun rising and setting, the generations of man living and dying, growing and changing, transforming into something beyond his imagining.

 _Arthur..._

Again and again the voice would come, touching him lightly in the void. Strong and weak. In pain and in laughter. Each time reminding him who he was, who he had been, who he would be, if only for a moment.

It was like that for a long time.

Until quite suddenly, it wasn't.

 _Arthur... Please..._

This time, the voice brought a flood of memories and emotion and life that did not recede.

 _Merlin_ , he thought.

Arthur turned from the darkness, focusing on the voice. This time, it let him go.

 _Arthur_ , called the voice.

He focused on the name with everything that he was.

And then thought again: _Merlin…_


	2. Chapter 2

Merlin ground his teeth as he strode down the street, his long coat whipping around his tired legs. His grip on his bag was so tight that his knuckles hurt and his wrist shot pains up his arm.

"That woman!" he spat out, in an attempt to prevent his anger from setting the nearby hedgerow aflame. "We shall be having words, Eleanor Mabel Godwyn," he said to himself, then had to spit out a few wayward hairs that the wind blew into his mouth.

He hauled the strap of his heavy bag higher onto an aching shoulder. The damp weather was playing hell with his joints today. And of course the long walk back from the Widow Abbernathy's stables wasn't helping.

Sick horse indeed! he thought. He should have known Eleanor was playing matchmaker again from the moment he'd walked into the stables. The only sick animal there had been the Widow Abbernathy.

Brazen old woman, Merlin thought. Honestly, someone her age, pinching his arse.

The roar of engines pulled him from his thoughts, and he moved closer to the hedgerow to let a large blue lorry speed past him on the road. Probably more supplies for the Summer Solstice Festival, he thought. The chaos of preparation was a nuisance every year. Still, he was looking forward to the festival itself. He could already taste the freshly made meat pies and chips-

 _'_ _Merlin.'_

Merlin stopped walking, all thoughts of busybody friends and summer festivals gone.

For one long moment, he stood perfectly still.

Listening.

But nothing stirred the fabric of the world. Nothing was out of place. The ancient magics were as they had been for centuries. There beneath the surface. But silent.

Off to his left, the waters of the Lake of Avalon rippled to the shore in greens and greys. Upon the island in the center of the water, the tower's ruins stood broken and still.

Idiot, he thought. And then forced his tired feet to carry him forward.

It took another few minutes before he reached the low stone wall that ran between the narrow village road and his estate.

He peered up at the large stone structure sitting in the middle of its wide lawns by the lakeside.

The North Tower needs stone work again, he thought. The seam between the rounded three story tower and the rectangular stone body of his manor house was always giving him trouble. The South Tower looked much better on the other end of the manor. But then, he'd built that a hundred years later. He'd learned a bit more about masonry by then.

"Emrys!"

Merlin pretended not to hear the call of the old woman by the front door of the manor house. Instead, he paused by the wooden gate in the low stone wall, adjusting a wooden sign declaring "Avalon Café and Apothecary" that hung from a nearby post.

Then, just to be contrary, he brushed some imaginary dirt from the sign that hung below that, which read "Avalon Museum" in small painted letters.

"Emrys Hunithson! I know you can hear me!"

Merlin brushed off some more invisible dirt, because his backside was still smarting him, then strolled casually through the gate and down the stone walkway to the main entrance of the stone manor house.

In the tall arched doorway, a short, thin, grey-haired 80 year old woman stood scowling at him, her arms crossed over a dress covered in far too many flowers. At her side were two young men in blue jumpsuits, clearly representing one of the Summer Solstice Festival vendors. The first man held a clipboard to his chest like a shield. The second was clearly attempting to hide behind the first.

"Everything under control, Eleanor?" Merlin asked sweetly.

"Are you Mr. Hunithson?" one of the men asked quickly, with a wary glance at Eleanor.

Before Merlin could answer, Eleanor spoke up. "Have you not just heard me call him that name? Honestly. And I told you he'd be here. Not that he needs to be here to sign for your tents. I told you I can do it."

"It's just- Can you sign, sir?" the man said, and thrust his clipboard at Merlin.

"Eleanor runs the festival for me, young man. She can sign for whatever it is that's so important that you're blocking the door to my business and my home." He pointed at the customers who stood behind the open double doors, wanting to leave the café beyond.

Eleanor grabbed the clipboard as the men stepped out of the way of the customers. "There," she said, thrusting the clipboard back at him. "Now get moving. The tents need to be up by this afternoon, before the food vendors. And don't put a tent over the Stone Circle!" she called after them, as they rushed away. "It caught on fire last year!" She pointed at Merlin. "Which was your fault, if I remember."

"I was only trying to-" Merlin caught himself and gave her a furious stare. "Nevermind that! I have a bone to pick with you, Eleanor Mabel Godwyn! About the Widow Abbernathy!"

She tipped up her chin and looked down her thin nose at him. "I have no idea to what you are referring."

He followed her into the vestibule to the house. "I am referring to the supposedly sick horse that supposedly required my personal attention!"

"Was her horse better when you got there?"

"Her horse was never sick! Which I could easily see from every angle imaginable as she tried to corner me in the stables! Stop laughing! It's not funny!"

He saw her cover her mouth with her hand as she walked into the cavernous main room of the main building, her laugh echoing on the stone walls.

Merlin hadn't really meant to make the main part of the manor house a replica of Camelot's throne room in size and scale. But somehow, it had happened. He had modern decorations hanging from the walls, and WiFi, and it was filled with café tables and customers, with a lunch counter at one end and his Apothecary at the other. But otherwise, it was quite close indeed.

Well, except for the glass wall that faced the lake, he thought. Though that had definitely been an improvement. The floor to ceiling glass allowed natural light to fill the cavernous room. It also allowed an unimpeded view of the Lake of Avalon, and its tower.

"Do be sure to wash off that smell of horse manure, Emrys," Eleanor said over her shoulder, as she moved through the dozens of small round tables filling the hall.

People seated nearby glanced up at him from their coffee or tea and sandwiches as he strode after her. Well, unfamiliar faces did anyway, he noticed. The regulars just kept working on their laptops or ate their food. They'd heard Merlin bickering with Eleanor before.

Merlin stopped in the middle of a group of empty tables. "Eleanor!" he said sharply, in the tone that Gaius had always used when he had done something dangerous that had nonetheless saved the kingdom, not that anyone was thanking him for it of course.

Eleanor turned around and studied his face curiously. "Are you in pain, Emrys?"

"I am not in _pain_. I am giving you The Eyebrow. Do you see it? Right here?" Merlin pushed up the corner of his eyebrow with an arthritic finger. For fifteen centuries he'd walked the earth, and still he couldn't mimic that thing Gaius did. "This," he informed Eleanor, "is the Eyebrow of Disapproval. Because of you! Setting me up with a village widow! Again! Which I specifically told you I did not want you to do!"

"If the Widow Abbernathy isn't your type, I know a few others who would be interested."

"What? No! That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying! Are you listening?"

"Only when you make sense."

Merlin yanked his knit hat off, sending long strands of white hair flying wildly in the air around his face. "Why have I never sacked you? You never do what I tell you!"

"That's because I know what's best for you," she said.

Merlin's reply died on his lips, as memory replaced the waking world.

 _"_ _Why do I put up with you, Merlin? You never do what I tell you to do."_

 _"_ _That's because I know what's best for you, my lord. You'd be totally lost without me."_

 _"_ _Oh, is that so?"_

 _"_ _Absolutely. I doubt you could even find your royal backside on your own."_

 _"_ _I'm sure I'd find it twice as fast."_

 _"_ _If you did, it would only be on account of its massive size."_

 _"_ _Shut up, Merlin."_

A touch on his arm drew Merlin from his thoughts. Eleanor was standing in front of him, indistinct and blurry. He blinked, and felt tears slide down his cheeks and into his beard.

"I need to get these herbs to the Apothecary," he told her in a low voice, touching his hand to his shoulderbag.

She started to speak, paused, then nodded. "When you're done, meet me in the park. I know you'll want final say on where the Cornish Pasties vendor should set up. Heavens forbid that he's too far away."

"They were sold out by the time I got there last year," he informed her.

"I think I do remember you mentioning that for three solid months after last year's festival," she said wryly, and turned to go.

Merlin watched her weave through the café tables, greeting people as she passed. A request from a customer made her nod, and walk to the narrow end of the hall, where the thrones had been in Camelot. A long café counter stretched across the space, beyond which was access to both the kitchens and to his own residence in the North Tower.

When Eleanor reached the counter, even more customers smiled at her, chatting happily, or holding out empty cups towards the teapot she offered them.

Merlin sighed, his anger from earlier now mostly gone. He never could stay angry at Eleanor for long. She was too good of a friend. She had been for thirty years now. Yes, she nagged and she meddled, but it was because she cared. She was only matchmaking to give him what she'd found late in life with her second husband. Someone to care for. Someone to look after.

Someone to be the other side of the same coin.

Merlin's gaze drifted up from the customers at their tables, to the Lake of Avalon visible through the glass wall.

 _'_ _You have no idea what I have to put up with in your absence, Arthur,'_ he thought at the tower.

 _'_ _You mean fending off an old woman with eager hands?'_ came the memory of Arthur's voice, chiding and exasperated.

 _'_ _I'd like to see you try and deal with her. She's a force of nature, is what she is.'_

 _'_ _Oh please. Something like that should hardly be a challenge, Merlin. Even for you.'_

 _'_ _Cheeky woman left pinch marks on my backside.'_

 _'_ _Is that why you hid in the empty stable from her? That was hysterical, honestly…'_

"Oh shut up," Merlin said fondly, startling himself with the sound of his own voice.

He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, then frowned back at the tower. It was bad enough to routinely have imaginary conversations with someone who was dead. It was worse to have them out loud and in public.

Merlin heaved a heavy sigh.

He really had been alone too long.

Behind him, someone cleared their throat. Merlin pulled himself together, to discover a young couple standing there, both clearly nervous and a bit red in the face.

"Yes?" he asked, even though he could guess what they were about to ask him.

"Can you- I mean-" the girl glanced at her young man, who was studying the stone floor with great interest. "We're hoping you can, um. That is, we saw on the internet that you sell, um. An elixir?"

"Follow me," Merlin said, and led them out of the café area, to the opposite end of the hall. A stone wall closed off the south end of the building. Double glass doors were set into it, under an old wooden "Apothecary" sign.

Merlin pushed open the doors and walked into a room filled with rows of shelving. Each shelf held bottles and boxes and jars of various potions, as well as herbs, soaps, and other herbal remedies he and his assistants made for sale.

"Wait right here," Merlin said to the couple, and walked over to the far wall, to the sales counter that stretched along it.

His assistant Danyl sat behind the counter by the cash register, his black hair nearly obscuring his eyes as he hunched over his laptop. On a chair next to him sat his other assistant Heath, who today looked as if he'd just walked off the rugby pitch, his blond hair mussed and his face ruddy, his dirty trainers up on the counter while he played a game on his phone.

Merlin shoved his shoulderbag onto the counter right where Heath's feet were, nearly toppling him off his chair.

"Oi!" Heath shouted at him.

Merlin held up the sleeping bag that he'd carried all the way from the Widow Abbernathy's house. "I am not your pack horse!" he said, and threw the bundle at Heath. "If you need anything else from your Gran for Festival camping, get it yourself."

"I would have had to leave poor Danyl alone with the shop," Heath said. "You know he's completely helpless here without me."

"Only if we're talking about brainlessly lifting boxes," Danyl informed him. "Then sure. You're definitely better at that."

"So you've been watching me, eh?" Heath held up his arm and flexed his bicep at Danyl.

"You wish," Danyl muttered.

Merlin noticed Danyl's ears go red, and Heath's gaze linger on Danyl's profile. Good gods, Merlin thought, it's like being around the stallions in the stables again.

"Which reminds me," Merlin said to Heath. "The next time I get a call about your Gran's horse, you're coming along with me to see if it's actually sick. Maybe that will help your Gran keep her grabby hands to herself."

Heath watched in horror as Merlin made groping gestures with his long fingers. "Oh my god please stop," the young man begged him.

"That's what I kept saying to your grandmother," Merlin said, just to have the satisfaction of watching Heath cover his face with both hands.

"Ugh- Seriously, that's- You guys are like a thousand years old!"

"At least," Merlin agreed, and pushed his messenger bag at him again. "So help an old man by taking those herbs up to the greenhouse on the roof for drying. But first…" He picked up a small glass bottle from a group sitting on display on the counter. "Give this to that young couple over there, will you?"

After Heath had gone, Merlin rounded the counter and took his seat beside Danyl. His feet were aching from the long walk this morning. In fact, everything was aching today. He felt every bit of the 90 years his body now wore. That, and a little more, besides.

"I've got to ask you," Danyl said into his thoughts. "I know you don't always like to say… But I have to know. What's that Magic Elixr stuff that's been selling like crazy lately?"

"Vitamin C, Vitamin B, a little anisette for scent, and a little bit of honey, for sweetness."

Danyl gave him an incredulous stare. "But- That's not anything special. People are raving about it online. They say it- That it- Well. That it does all kinds of things."

"In the bedroom, you mean?" Merlin said, and happily watched Danyl close his eyes and make a horrified and disgusted face at him. Because honestly, what was the point of being old if you couldn't torture young people now and then?

"Yes, yes, that. Those ingredients shouldn't have anything to do with that."

"Sometimes," Merlin said, "all it takes is a little mystery to get the real magic to work. So you better not tell Heath what I just told you. It might ruin any fun you two might have together."

"Ssshhh!" Danyl hissed at him, with a glance over to where Heath was vanishing up the spiral stairs to the floors above.

"Haven't you told him how you feel yet?' Merlin said, not bothering to lower his voice.

Danyl waved an urgent, silencing hand at him. "I'm waiting for the right time!" he said in a low voice.

"How much longer are you going to wait? Until it's too late? You've been pining for that boy for weeks!" Merlin turned towards the stairs leading to the roof. "Heath!"

Danyl grabbed his arm. "Oh my god what are you-"

"Yes?" came the call down the stairwell.

"Danyl would like you to go with him to the Summer Solstice Festival. On a date. As a couple. Romantically." Merlin slapped at Danyl's hands as they pulled at his coat. "What do you say? Will you go with him and put him out of his misery?"

"I am never telling you a secret again!" Danyl moaned into the hand that covered his face. "You are the worst secret keeper in the history of secret keepers!"

"Tell him I'll go," came Health's voice down the stairwell. "And tell him it's about damn time he asked me."

At Merlin's side, Danyl went still, his eyes widening.

"The older you get, Danyl," Merlin said, "the more you realize that some secrets shouldn't be kept." He gave Danyl's hand a little pat. "Trust me on that."


	3. Chapter 3

"I told them if they don't keep their clothes on this year, it'll be the last time they're welcome at the Solstice Festival."

Merlin stifled a laugh as he walked beside Eleanor through the park adjoining his property. "I'm sure _that_ will keep them in line."

"I should think so!" Eleanor said, ignoring his sarcastic tone.

Merlin sidestepped one of the many workmen who were either constructing wooden booths or setting up tents throughout the park. Vendors and musicians and performers mingled among the crews, all preparing for the weekend's festivities.

"All that Neo Druid and Neo Wiccan and Earth Children nonsense," Eleanor was muttering. "Just an excuse to run around bare-arsed and pissed if you ask me."

"It's better that than what they could be getting up to."

"What in the world could be worse?"

A flash of memory. Of screams waking him from sleep. Of thirty men in pagan robes gathered under the solstice moon. Of children held at swordpoint, about to become sacrifices to the gods of the latest invaders of Albion.

Rage had consumed him at the sight, and his magic had exploded from him, crushing the men against the tree trunks with such force that the trees had snapped in half and flattened the forest all around him.

He could still remember the nausea and shock he'd felt at the sight of crumpled bodies and decimated forest. The children he had saved had all run away. Terrified of the death and destruction. Terrified of him. He hadn't blamed them, and he hadn't chased after them. He'd wanted to run from himself too.

It had taken him two days to bury all the bodies of the dead men.

It had taken him two years to use magic again without seeing their unmarked graves.

"Emrys?"

He realized they had stopped walking beside a low wooden stage. Eleanor stood facing him, surrounded by young men and women holding guitars. All of them were looking at him expectantly.

"Sorry? What?"

"I said, Emrys, that this is where the band will perform. They'll be separated from the camping area on the far side of the park, but within walking distance of the food vendors at the hilltop by the road."

"Yes. Good. Of course. That's… Sorry, was there a question I should be answering?"

Eleanor heaved a clearly exasperated sigh, but smiled at him. "Do you just want me to take care of it?"

Merlin took her hand in both of his, affecting as humble an expression as he could muster after fifteen hundred years. "Would you, my lady?"

"Old fool," she said, and swatted at his arm fondly. "Go on then. Off with you."

Merlin wasted no time in leaving the group to their plans. The coordination of the Avalon Solstice Festival was definitely best left to Eleanor. He had no skill for such things. And no love for them either.

No, he was much better at tending his gardens, and making soaps and elixirs for the apothecary, and tending to what ailments he could for people in the village, and writing books for his library.

And waiting.

He was very good at waiting by now.

Merlin strolled through the park, hands shoved in the pockets of his long coat, watching vendors set out their wares on the few completed booths. Already he saw several of them bearing signs claiming to sell items of magic .

These children of the new age, Merlin thought wistfully. All of them longing for the old ways. But none of them with even a hint of real magic.

Which probably was for the best

Merlin pulled his coat closed against a chilly wind as he wandered into the camping area. "We're going to have a word about tomorrow's weather," he said up to the grey clouds. "There'll be none of this nonsense for the first day of summer."

It would only take a little nudge of the ancient magics of the earth to ensure a sunny warm day. Not a difficult bit of magic to perform at all. Not for him, anyway. Not for a long time.

His winding path eventually brought him down to the grassy lakeside, to a fifty foot wide circle of waist high stones. Locals had been calling the rock formation the Stone Circle of Avalon for centuries now. It was the main feature of the park by the same name that bordered his estate. It had even been declared a National Trust Property a few years back.

A lot of damn fuss over a calendar, Merlin thought, as he strolled over to the circle's heelstone. He'd only built the thing to mark the passage of time. His own body had been useless in that regard.

Merlin glared across the rippling lake at the ruins of the tower on the Isle of Avalon. Two sides of the same coin, he thought. I should have known it was more than an expression. I should have realized that if Arthur would endure, then I would too.

And endure they both had. Separate, and alone. At opposite ends of existence.

Year after year, century after century, lifetimes of man, Merlin had lived on and on and on, ever since that horrible day when he'd placed Arthur's body in a boat and sent him to the Sidhe.

Merlin pressed a wrinkled palm against the coarse rock of the heelstone, his eyes upon the green grasses beneath his worn boots. Right here, he thought. Right here in this spot, it had all come to an end.

He could almost see his younger self on the grass, abandoned even by the great dragon, kneeling beside Arthur's body, begging the unfeeling universe one last time to give Arthur back to him, pleading with the ancient magics of the earth to please let Arthur stay, please, just let Arthur stay-

 _'_ _Merlin.'_

Merlin's gaze snapped to the ruined tower.

I _felt_ that, he thought. I _did_. I _know_ I did.

Merlin dropped to his knees and toppled forward, pressing his hands to the damp grass and cold earth.

 _"_ _Inbringe cume mec onbregdan cume her!"_

His magic rose to fill him, and he sent it at once deep down into the ground, stretching past soil, past rock, deep into the liquid core of the earth below. Finding no trace of what he sought, he surged with his magic up through sea beds, up through the oceans, up into the clouds, then back down to earth again in the rain that flowed to the rivers, and to the lake, and upon the shore, until finally rushing back into his body.

Merlin heaved in a breath as if emerging from deep water. He saw the world tilt, felt his body list sideways, and fell hard to the ground.

"Nothing," he whispered to the ruined tower, or at least to what he could see of it through the long white hair covering his face. "But that's… I _felt_ something… I did… I did…"

Someone shouted his name nearby. With great effort, he lifted a shaking arm and pressed his palm to the ground to push himself up. When his body refused to cooperate, he rested his cheek upon the cool grass instead, and pulled what strength he could through the natural forces of the living things all around him.

Too long, Merlin thought. It had been far too long since he'd connected with the ancient powers. He'd let his body grow too old and weak to support the attempt.

"This is your fault, Arthur," he muttered into the grass.

 _'_ _How is it my fault?'_

"You've been gone so long that I've actually turned into an idiot."

 _'_ _You were already an idiot when we first met, Merlin.'_

"Better an idiot than a royal arse."

"Some help over here!" he heard Eleanor shout.

"I'm all right," Merlin muttered, and with a grunt of effort, pushed himself to his aching knees. After pawing his hair out of his face, he realized Eleanor and several of the construction workers were standing around him, staring at him in obvious worry.

"Should we call Emergency Services?" one of them asked.

"No you should not. I'm fine." Merlin got a foot under him and extended an arm to the man. "Just help an old man to his feet, will you?" Instead of taking his hand, two of them men stepped to his sides, grabbing him under the armpits like a child and hauling him to his feet. "I'm fine, I'm _fine_. Let _go_. It's just a bit of low blood sugar from not eating today," he added, because that was always a good excuse for magical exhaustion.

"I'll take him inside and make him eat something," Eleanor told the rest of them. She grabbed hold of Merlin's arm in a grip worthy of a Knight of Camelot. "Come on."

Merlin tried to shake free from her grip as she walked him up the hill towards his property. "I can walk on my own."

Eleanor let go of him, watched as he staggered sideways when he tried to take a step without support, then sighed loudly and grabbed his arm to steady him again.

"Oh shut up," he told her.

"I wasn't going to say a word," she said, as she walked him through the park and towards the wooden side gate to his property. His legs were unsteady under him as he passed through it, and he nearly lost his balance twice before they bypassed the wide porch stretching along the glass wall of his house.

Eleanor passed the glass doors to the café and guided him towards his private entrance in the North Tower. "Do you have your keys?"

"Why would someone like me need keys?" Merlin said, then stumbled in surprise at his too honest reply. Apparently he was not as unaffected from his collapse as he thought.

"Just because you own half the lake region doesn't mean you should leave everything unlocked," Eleanor said, proving once again how easily modern people believed what they wanted. "There'll be hundreds of people here in a matter of hours to camp out for the festival tomorrow. You need to protect your things. Such as they are," she added, as she led him through his front door and into his residence.

His rooms on the first floor of the North Tower were sparse indeed. Although the layout was open and modern, with living area flowing into dining area flowing into kitchen, it was definitely more empty than minimalist. A few paintings hung on the walls, and long curtains hung beside tall narrow windows in the rounded stone walls. But there were no real signs that someone actively lived there.

Which made sense, Merlin thought. Because he didn't.

Eleanor sat him on his ridiculously overstuffed sofa and went to get him food in his kitchen. As he relaxed back into the cushions, he heard her saying something to him about the sad state of his refrigerator, and his habit of taking food from the café kitchens.

Ah, he thought sleepily. She must have discovered the sandwiches I nicked this week. Or possibly the bag of scones I took from the bakery counter this morning. Or possibly the flavored creams from the café. Or, come to think of it, just about everything else that I have in there.

"Eat this," Eleanor said, startling him awake by shoving a plate into his hand. "Go on."

"I'm not a child," Merlin said, grabbing a muffin from the plate, and taking a petulant bite of it, sending crumbs cascading down into his beard and onto his coat.

Eleanor watched him eat, her arms crossed tight over her flowered disaster of a dress, worry deepening the wrinkles of her narrow face, pressing her lips into a tight line.

"What?" Merlin asked, finally.

"You wonder why I'm trying to find you someone, Emrys. Well. This," she gestured to his crumpled form on the couch, "is the reason."

"I'm fine, Eleanor."

"You are not fine-"

"I told you. I just didn't eat today."

"That's exactly what I mean. If you had someone to keep an eye on you, you'd be much better off. I know I have been, since I found my Frederick."

Merlin leaned back against the sofa, his eyes falling closed. He was so unspeakably tired. He could feel the exhaustion deep in his bones.

"Let me find you someone special-" Eleanor began.

"I already had someone special," he said, because he was too tired to lie about this anymore. "But he's gone now."

There was a long moment of silence. And then a soft "oh". Finally, there was a movement by his side on the sofa, as she sat next to him. "He," she said.

"Yes. He."

"All these years," she said, and she sounded hurt now. "All this time we've known each other. And you never said."

He drew in a deep breath, sighed it out, turning his head on the couch to look at her troubled expression. "It wasn't like you're thinking. Between him and me. At least. I didn't even realize. Not until he was gone."

She placed a hand on his arm. "I wish you'd told me."

"It was a very, very long time ago."

Another long silence. "You know," she said finally, "I happen to know there are quite a few eligible older gentlemen in the village…"

Merlin huffed out a laugh. Because honestly. She was just relentless. "Eleanor," he said, and covered her hand with his own. "My dear, dear friend. Thank you for what you're trying to do for me. But please. Don't. Because there is only one person I belong with. And no other person will do. Believe me. I've tried."

She squeezed his hand, her expression unspeakably sad. "Promise me you'll eat the rest of that," she said.

"Yes, Eleanor," he said, in his best doddering old man tone yet.

"And get some rest," she said, more in her normal tone of voice. "You'll need it for the festival tomorrow. I've hung your Merlin costume behind your bedroom door, by the way. Try not to set it on fire again this year."

"Ah yes," Merlin said, and smiled tiredly. "That's right. Tomorrow I get to be Merlin again. That's always nice."

"I don't know why you don't just use your own name," she said, as she picked up his plate and put the muffin back in his hand. "Emrys was Merlin's name in the legends too, after all."

"No one knows that," Merlin said, and took another bite of muffin after she gestured for him to eat again. "Believe me. It's easier living as Emrys than it is Merlin."

"A good thing you weren't named after your father, then."

That's right, Merlin thought. He'd told her when they met that his father was named Merlin. That had been his name, during the second world war. It had all been so long ago. He couldn't remember what lie he'd told the people in the village when he'd replaced his older self as a young man.

He watched her walk the plate to the kitchen through half-lidded eyes. Sleep was pulling at him, even as he struggled against it. "Did you put my hat and cape with my costume?" he asked.

"Of course I did. You can't be a wizard without a hat and cape, now, can you."

"Never wore a hat, back then," Merlin said, as his eyes drifted closed. "Well. Almost never. Only when Arthur made me. Hardly ever wore a cape, too. Shame, really. Always liked red. Probably for the best… Could have caught fire… All those times with the dragons…"

He felt her lift the muffin from his fingers and press her hand to his arm. "Take a nap," she said. "Then have some of those sandwiches you nicked from the café later and go to bed. You'll feel better in the morning."

He tried to say that he would do no such thing. But the door to the main house was barely closed behind her before he felt himself pulled into sleep.

He woke several hours later, groggy and disoriented. A single lamp barely illuminated the dark room. Outside the narrow windows, night had long since fallen.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he got to his feet and staggered across the room to his downstairs bedroom.

He didn't bother checking to see if the Café or Apothecary or South Tower Museum were closed and locked. He trusted the people who worked for him. They cared for this place. And they cared for him too. He had no doubt things would be secured for the night.

After stumbling into his downstairs bedroom, Merlin walked past the meticulously made bed, over to a small closet door in the far wall.

He opened its door to reveal a circular stone staircase lined with candelabras. Candles flickered to life as he climbed the stone stairs, guiding him up to the second story of the North Tower.

Which is where he actually lived.

Merlin emerged from the stairwell into a long stone corridor that ran the length of the North Tower, lakeside to roadside. Its walls were lined with burning torches that flickered to life at his presence. Between the burning flames, tapestries of bright red hung from the walls, all bearing the yellow dragon of the Pendragon crest.

The corridor would have been familiar to many in Camelot. Especially if they had ever walked the halls between the king's chambers and the rooms of the Court Physician.

With a yawn, Merlin turned left down the corridor, to head to his room within the chambers of the Court Physician. But after only a few steps, he slowed, and then stopped.

How long? he wondered. How long since he'd checked on Arthur's rooms? A few weeks perhaps? Or- no. No, that couldn't be it. Outside it had been snowing, hadn't it? Yes, that's right. He remembered noticing the cold.

But the last snowfall had been months ago.

Merlin turned, and stared down the corridor at the closed wooden double doors.

"That can't be," he muttered. "It can't have been months."

But when Merlin pushed open the doors to Arthur's chambers, the stale air that rushed out at him told him all he needed to know.

It hadn't been months since he'd tended to these rooms.

It had been years.

Merlin stared into the dark rooms, at the shuttered windows and the closed drapes and the dark candles, breathing in the rank smells of musty fireplace and dusty stone and neglect.

Hugging his coat to his chest against the chill, Merlin walked into the stone anteroom, past Arthur's desk and table and chairs. He stepped into the archway to Arthur's bedroom choking on dust, blinking it from his eyes as he regarded the dimly lit wardrobe and dressing screen and canopied bed.

He could be standing in Camelot, in Arthur's rooms when he had been a prince, if not for the stillness and disuse of this place. He'd let himself pretend it more than once in the past. In moments of weakness.

Merlin waved a hand at the dozens of tall candles on their iron stands and in their wall sconces, sending magic to light them. They flickered to life all around him, chasing away the darkness, revealing the carefully reproduced rooms.

Upon every surface, he saw a a thick, white, layer of dust. On Arthur's table. On his parchment. On his bedding. On his pillows. Everywhere.

Merlin stepped over to the wooden frame of the standing mirror beside Arthur's bed. "Look at this," he said, and dragged two fingers through the layer of dust coating the surface. "I can't even see myself."

 _'_ _You say that like it's a bad thing, Merlin.'_

"Vanity was your specialty, Arthur, not mine." He grabbed the sleeve of his coat and wiped away a larger section of mirror, revealing an old man he barely recognized as himself.

 _'_ _Gods, Merlin, what happened to you?'_

 _'_ _That,'_ answered another voice, a younger voice, an angrier voice, _'is a very damn good question!'_

For a split second, Merlin saw in the mirror not the man he was, but the man he had been.

Young. Powerful. _Furious_.

 _'_ _Look at yourself!'_ raged his younger self. ' _Look at what you've become!'_

Merlin wiped the rest of the dust from the surface of the mirror with his bare hand, top to bottom, until he could see his actual reflection staring back at him.

His long white hair was wild around his face, his beard contained bits of grass, his coat was dirty from the trip to the stables, and his clothes looked like they'd been slept in, more than once.

He was, in fact, the very image of a mad old sorcerer who lived in the wild.

 _'_ _Where is the warlock who took on the Saxon Army?'_ his younger self railed at him. ' _Where is the man who stood as equal to dragons? Where is the sorcerer who ran headlong into fire and danger and death?'_

"He's dead," Merlin choked out. "He died, on the shores of Avalon, with his king."

Sudden rage filled him, at a fate he hadn't wanted, at a destiny he had failed to avoid. Merlin grabbed hold of the mirror's wooden frame, and his magic surged forth, shattering the glass into dust.

He thrust a hand into the dust cloud, churning his fist through it, forming it into a whirlwind.

You want power? he thought furiously. I'll show you _power_.

He pushed more magic into the whirlwind, expanding it until it filled the room. Its winds left Arthur's possessions untouched, but lifted every spec of dust and dirt from the room, until all traces of neglect were gone.

Merlin thrust his arm towards the bedroom window, and the curtains flew aside, the shutters banging open, the double glass windows bursting outward. He shoved his palm forward, and sent the tempest of dust out of the window, up into the sky, where it exploded like a firework.

The sound of it shook the glass, and vibrated in his chest, a sound so loud that it would be heard in the Village of Avalon down the road.

Let them come, Merlin thought furiously. Let them come and let them try to take me away from Arthur to some laboratory for study. I will call the lightning from the heavens. I will open the earth to swallow them whole.

Merlin felt himself shaking as the ancient magics surged around and through him, flowing in brilliant rivers of color and light that pulsed and vibrated and sang in his blood and his bones. Within the undulating currents he saw molecules and atoms and electrons and quarks and bits of matter so small that men had not yet discovered them.

So easy to manipulate, he thought wildly. So easy to shape and rend.

Merlin grabbed onto the mirror's empty wooden frame, and with barely any effort, twisted and warped the atoms of the air. Within the empty frame, the air shimmered, vibrated, then solidified into a flawless mirror.

Inches away, Merlin's reflection stared back at him in perfect detail.

The entirety of his eyes shone with gold. His body was glowing from within as well, a ghostly yellow shining through even his clothes. His lips were pulled back in a sneer, his expression a death's head grin, and his expression was twisted into a horrifying mask of merciless, limitless power.

Merlin's hands jerked away from the frame, his body convulsing in his shock.

He must have staggered backwards, because he felt the bedpost hit his back and his head. He focused on the pain, desperately trying to come back to himself.

 _'_ _As clumsy as ever, Merlin.'_

"Yes," he choked out. "Clumsy and an idiot and the world's worst servant, yes, that's who I am, that's what I am, tell me Arthur, tell me that's who I am…"

 _'_ _Well you're also a total cabbage head, obviously, if you can't remember something so simple.'_

Merlin nodded frantically, his eyes squeezing closed. He could always remember Arthur better with his eyes closed. Arthur with his blue eyes and blond hair and fine clothes and jacket and boots, his hand on the hilt of Excalibur, a fond smile on his lips.

"What else," Merlin said through a tight throat. "Please… What else… Arthur…"

 _'_ _You're also the most loyal and bravest man I know. And you've never forgotten your duty. So don't start now.'_

Merlin's eyes snapped open, for just a second believing that Arthur was standing there.

The candle lit room sat silent and empty around him, still faintly smelling of dusty stone and stale hearth and too many years without someone having set foot in it.

Merlin pushed himself from the bedpost and staggered to the open lakeside window on legs that threatened to give out at every step. He leaned upon its stone sill heavily, weak and shaking down into his bones, heaving in deep gulps of cold night air.

In the darkness of night outside, both the lake and its tower were hidden from view. But Merlin knew they were there. They were always, always there.

"Please," he said to them. "I can't do this anymore. Not alone. Without him, I'll…"

Memories flashed before his eyes, of sorcerers whose powers had grown unchecked, who had twisted the world to suit their desires, who had put themselves on a higher throne than man or god.

Monsters and murderers, driven mad by the power of magic, all of them.

And none of them had ever held even a fraction of the power Merlin now possessed.

"Please," he begged, of the Sidhe, of the ancient sleeping magics of the world, of any of his magical kin who may still be left. "Please. Give him back to me. I need him. _I need him_." He pressed his forehead to the stone. "Please..."

He stood with his head bowed until his thoughts swam and his legs almost buckled beneath him. With the last of his strength he stumbled to Arthur's bed, pulling off his coat, kicking off his boots, before crawling fully clothed under the blankets.

The linens smelled nothing of Camelot. Nothing of Arthur. Nothing did here anymore.

I'll wash it all tomorrow, Merlin thought. Not with magic. But properly. With my hands. With the soaps I make just like the ones in Camelot.

Merlin pushed long white strands of hair out of his face with trembling old fingers, feeling every single year of his long life weighing heavy on his body.

"I'll do better," he whispered into the soft fabric beneath his face. "I promise, Arthur. I'll do better. I will. I will."

 _'_ _All right, Merlin. All right. Just rest now.'_

"I'm sorry…"

 _'_ _I don't want your sorrys, Merlin. I want you to sleep before you do something truly stupid.'_

"There's a list already," Merlin whispered into the pillowcase.

 _'_ _Of that I'm certain.''_

Merlin felt his thoughts slide away, melting into dreams. In them, Arthur stood by the bedside, shirtless and in sleeping breeches, blond hair mussed, blue eyes fond.

"Really, Merlin? Sleeping in my bed? Does your insolence know no bounds?"

"There's room for you here as well," he heard himself say, his voice young and strong.

"I should throw you in the stocks," Arthur said, but slid into the bed next to him. Then, as if he had done this many times before, Arthur wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close. "Now go to sleep."

Merlin pressed his face into the warm skin of Arthur's neck. He felt a heartbeat there, and it made him want to cry, though he didn't know why. "There are other things we could do instead," he told Arthur.

"In the morning," Arthur said, and slid a hand around to caress his face. "We'll do all those things in the morning."

"Promise?"

"Yes. I promise. Now for once in your life, do as I say. Go to sleep. You're exhausted. And bad things happen to you when you're exhausted."

Merlin frowned against Arthur's neck. Yes, bad things did happen. But he couldn't remember what. Something about a forest. Something about a tower. And there was a boat, wasn't there?

"Don't think about it," Arthur said.

He nodded, relieved. "Yes, my lord."

A press of lips against his forehead. A warm breath on his face. "Good night, Merlin."

"Good night, Arthur," Merlin said, and slid into dreamless sleep.

Author's note - All chapters of this story are posted in its entirety at AO3 here: _**/works/9851609/chapters/22106327**_

I wanted to post at least part of it here too, because I have a warm spot in my heart for . But I've moved to posting all my things on AO3. If you'd like to learn what becomes of Merlin and Arthur (hint: happy ending!), visit me there.


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